Don't Get Sick, Kids

In an utterly predictable scenario explained in this New York Times article, we have Bushco and the Repugs fighting once again to expand health insurance on behalf of those who need it the most, particularly children. In this story, the following quote from Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt appears (page 2)…

Mr. Leavitt said it was absurd that “families making over $81,000 a year would have children eligible for public assistance.”

In response, here is a link to a post that ostensibly castigates Third Way as a corporatist tool though they purport to represent Democrats; buried further down is this…

Listen to Turley K. Hayes of Topeka, Kansas – a relatively low cost of living area: “I earn a gross income of $81,000 and support my disabled domestic partner. My NET income from this (after taxes, insurance, Social Security, Medicare, Co-Pays for medical) is down to $46,435. My partner and I live paycheck to paycheck, as prices have risen. The ‘money’ specialists say we haven't had inflation. Tell that to me after I go to JC Penney and buy a new pair of workshoes, identical to the ones I bought last year and pay $21.34 more (and that was after a 10% discount coupon). There is inequality, those at the low end can get help, those at the high end don't need it. Those of us in the middle are suffering because we make too much to get help and not enough to save for anything.” But that schmuck David Brooks tells the world that such household incomes are just fine. How many households below the median can afford to send a child to even a state college and also save for retirement, because virtually no one gets a pension anymore?

As to economic inequality: Adjusted for inflation, wages rose about 11.5 percent from 1979 to 2006 for those at the median (the story notes that that’s really not that impressive a rate of growth for about 25 years). Those near the bottom of the wage scale saw their pay rise just 4% during that time, while the incomes of those at the top rose 34%. That’s unfair distributional economics. If you are in the Upper Class, you could care less. But most Americans feel economic anxiety, because direct experience tells them that they are close to – or moving closer to – economic disaster. They are just one serious illness or job loss away from requiring government welfare assistance, losing their home, and going bankrupt.

And if you project the cost of insurance for kids versus that of adults from the numbers in Figure 1 here (that is, $4,410 for both adults and children), you find that the cost for kids is $3,988 (public insurance) versus $3,145 for adults (though any parent will tell you that, in cases assuming regular visits, immunizations and checkups and barring an illness requiring long-term coverage, children’s health care costs will exceed that of adults).

What that means is that, in the example with Turley K. Hayes noted above, the cost would have been at least competitive for a single earner making a $81,000 wage carrying a disabled partner if that person had been caring for a child instead (though the cost could easily be higher).

This explains why it is not absurd at all for families with children that earn $81,000 to be eligible for public assistance.

But what else can we expect from a man who, as governor of Utah, allowed that state’s Department of Child and Family Services to degenerate into a tragic joke (as noted here)?

And speaking of screwed-up health care, here's more information on "Sicko" by Michael Moore.